


Romantic Gestures

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Body Horror, Ensemble Cast, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, Injury, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simmons takes a bullet for Grif. It’s not his brightest idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romantic Gestures

     Simmons didn’t remember much of it later.

     He was good at remembering things. It was a trait he held since childhood. Since age 9, he’d had the entire roster of the Avengers committed to memory, since age 12, he’d had 32 digits of pi backlogged in his brain in case it came in handy. When he entered the army, he memorized the entire set of rules and regulations within a week.

     Stupid stuff. That what he was good at remembering according to Grif. Facts and figures that no one gave a shit about. And he was right. Simmons was an expert at memorizing stupid shit.

     But he could remember important stuff too. When it counted.

     In the hospital, thinking back on it, Simmons would swear that the battle happened nowhere special. The scene blended in with most of Chorus in his memory; rock filled, hot, and covered in long grass. From what Sarge would tell him later, his memory had left out most of the details; the small road where they had been ambushed on patrol had more to it than just drab scenery. Alien tech hummed from the cracks in the cement, bright blue lights gleamed under boulders, gravel snuck into every crevice of their suits and slogged them down.

     Simmons didn’t remember any of that. All he had left in his memory was a 5 second moment. The Red team walking down the path. Grif bitching. Sarge bitching back. A  rustle from the bushes that let Simmons notice the enemy with a 47 special issue rifle. A rifle he was aiming right at Grif.

     The manual from base camp, in retrospect, had turned out to be mostly useless. The regulations spouted in the 300 page document were never enforced at Red base, if they were ever enforced at all. But the section on weapons had been enlightening. A 47 special issue rifle was only given to the top of the chain of command, and discontinued due to how often it jammed. Its bullets were almost impossible to buy off the black market. It was heavy, large and a general pain in the ass. But when it worked, it could pierce regulation armor like it was cardboard.

     Simmons’ brain, despite the robotic enhancements to the rest of his body, remained untouched by Sarge’s hands. It couldn’t process information any faster than any other human. Despite that, when Simmons saw that gun? He knew Grif was a dead man.

    _That was unacceptable._

     “Grif!” Simmons yelled, charging forward as fast as he could. Grif, reaction time as terrible as ever, barely moved. Simmons thought about tackling him to get them both out of the line of fire, and immediately decided against it. He’d never been able to get Grif to move anywhere. There was only one option left.  

     As he leapt in front of the bullet. Simmons only had one thought.

      Asshole better thank me for this.

*******

      Grif, in fact, did not thank Simmons for his actions in the slightest.

     In Grif’s defense, Simmons didn’t actually manage to save him from being shot. All he managed to do was slow down the bullet before it popped right out of his shoulder to lodge itself in Grif’s gut. Sarge had only managed to take the guy down because his gun jammed.

     All and all, it was a rather embarrassing display from the Red team.

      “You know,” said Doctor Grey, standing above Simmons, her long black bangs covering her eyes. “If you jumped a little higher, the bullet would have gotten your robotic implants. The gears might have actually stopped it all together.” She poked at some of the metal plating that was under his arm with the tip of her pencil. “Funny how these things happen, isn’t it?”

      “Yeah, funny,” Simmons muttered, looking down at the rusted copper that made up a large chunk of his right torso. Back when he was first gotten the surgery, the scars that remained from welding the metal to his skin had been horrific. His whole body had been covered in puckered red fault lines, running from his eye socket to his toes, like some sort of modern Frankenstein. With the passing of years (and some fantastic skin cream from Donut) the scars had receded somewhat, becoming light pink puckers that reminded Simmons more of birthmarks than anything else. But he still had the memory of what they looked like before.

     The new wound in his shoulder, puckered, red, and inflamed, was so similar that it made Simmons want to throw up.

      The hospital room for the now united forces of Chorus was rather small, perhaps a hallway’s worth of space divided up by curtains and hanged quilts. Half of the lights were burnt out, the other half flickering away like the staccato heartbeat of a hummingbird. Simmons’ bed was at the end of the line, right next to a large pair of doors, which banged the bed frame when opened fully. Grif’s bed, a large slab of wood held up by two cinder blocks with a cot on top, was just to his left, the space between them so close that they could hold hands. Not like that was happening any time soon.

      “Yeah, Simmons. Next time, aim higher, why don’t you? Save us money on medical,” Grif said from his cot. His stomach was wrapped up in bandages and was using the back of the wall in lieu of a headboard to prop himself up. His black hair had been cut short back into regulation, which might have been the reason for his mood. His left arm rested over the bandages, the light pale patch of skin Simmons donated in the past visible on the top if his hand. Tucker and Donut were both seated at his side, while Washington stood between them.  All three out of armor.  

     “And ruin my careful crafting!?” Simmons closed his eyes for a second, hoping that perhaps lack of vision would cause lack of hearing as well. He had no such luck. “You know how long it took those gears to work, Grif? How much experimentation?”

     “Demasiado.” And there was Lopez. Simmons hoped whatever he was saying was biting. Someone tapped his forehead and he opened his eyes to find Doctor Grey staring at him and inch away from his face. If she expected him to flinch, she was going to be disappointed. After half-a-decade of living with Caboose, Sarge and Donut, Simmons was immune to invasions of personal space.

      “You still have to tell me how you did that,” Doctor Grey said, shining a light into Simmons’ human eye, then his robotic one. She tucked her penlight into her doctor’s coat which she wore over her armor and clapped her hands together. “Alright! You’re going to be fine, Commander Simmons. A week of bedrest and some PT should get you back into fighting shape, as long as you don’t stress the shoulder!”

     “A week?” Tucker said. “Dude got shot!  Doesn’t he need more than a week?”

     “Medically? Yes. Given our impending demise? No. Now, I have some reports to file!”She opened the doors in front of Simmon’s bed. They hit the frame of his cot, jarring his shoulder, and as she stepped out, they hit it again. The small enclave that housed the Reds and the Blues was quiet for a few moments.

     “What a lady,” Sarge said, watching the doors with his mouth slightly open, a light pink tint to his face. Simmons felt his stomach turn. If being in the hospital ward meant putting up with a love-sick Sarge, Simmons would sign his discharge papers asap.

     “Someone bring over a basin, I think I need to vomit,” Grif said, his lips pulling up in a disgusted expression. Donut began to actually reach for the basin until Sarge shot him a glare. Grif turned his gaze back to Simmons and ran the back of his hand down the line of bandages. His nails caught on the gauze a few times. “For someone who claims to be a nerd, you’re really fucking dumb, you know that?”

     Despite being doped up on pain medication, Simmons could feel irritation begin to build in his temples. He would have rubbed them if his arm didn’t hurt so much. Blood began to rush to his face, turning the right side a crimson red. Back before the robotics, it used to take up his entire face, turning him as red as Sarge’s armor, but after the surgery, the effect only happened on one side. It made him look lopsided, and thus, completely ridiculous. “Fuck you. I was trying to save your ass.”

     “And here begins the lover’s quarrel,” Tucker said, nudging Wash in the ribs. Wash rolled his eyes at that, though it was unclear if the gesture was from Tucker’s remarks or the bickering going on in front of them. Both Grif and Simmons took no notice of the commentary, continuing to snipe at each other as their voices increased in volume.

     “By stopping a bullet with your torso. Yeah, real helpful. How was that even supposed to work in your dumb brain of yours, anyway?” Grif flicked his chest where one of his ribs would lie with two of his right fingers, and made a popping noise with his mouth. “Bullet deflecting ribs?”  
     

     Simmons looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then looked back to Grif.“You have most of my ribs, actually.” He said it like he was delivering a crucial argument instead of giving a basic fact. He looked smug for a few seconds, his freckles accentuated with his smirk, before Grif groaned. It was loud enough to echo down the hallway.

     “Bow-chicka-”

“You know what I meant!” Grif cut Tucker off. The captain was sitting up fully on his cot, both of his arms gripping the handrails to keep himself in that position. The skin of Grif’s left knuckle, Simmons skin, was bright red from the force. “You’re part robot, not part terminator! What were you trying to prove? How fastly you could fuck up a situation in five seconds flat?”

     For once, Simmons didn’t rise to the bait. In fact, he didn’t notice it was bait at all. He was too busy thinking back on Grif’s words. What was he trying to prove? That he was a good soldier? No, he had cast off that self-delusion years ago. That he could save them all? Not likely either. That he was worthy of the Red team? Maybe.

      Thinking back on the moment, the moment when he let his feet leave the ground, the moment when he felt a bright hot pain enter his shoulder, the moment he thought for sure he’d pass out, he knew none of those were true. Because the only thing Simmons was thinking of when he made that leap was Grif. Grif’s dumb face every time Simmons woke him up in the morning. Grif’s smile when he saw lakes and oceans, small waves crash against the shore. Grif’s yell as he was flung off a cliff and Simmons thought for sure that he had missed a chance that he’d never been able to define-

     Grif. Not his enemy. Not his friend. Something else. Something Simmon’s couldn’t bear losing.

     And with that thought, Simmons felt irritation that had been building to a rage vanish at once. The red half of his face became a little less pronounced. He felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder. He rolled over so he was no longer facing Grif, so he didn’t have to see his dumb face. And with the last bit of annoyance he could muster, he said the stupidest sentence he had ever uttered in his entire life.

     “Well sorry you didn’t appreciate my romantic gesture.”

     He only fully realized what he just said when the room went dead quiet. Tucker stopped whispering to Wash. Donut stopped humming under his breath. Lopez and Sarge stopped pretending that they could carry a conversation. Grif was just plain still, eyes wide, his grip on the handrails suddenly far too loose. He fell back against the wall with a large thump, his bed rattling a little from the impact. It had to hurt given his wound, but Grif didn’t even flinch.

     Lopez was the first to break the silence.

     “Ay dios mio. Los idiotas estan enamorado.”

      Lopez words made everyone spring into action. Sarge grabbed Lopez by the shoulder and dragged him out the door, muttering something about “not old enough for this.” Donut followed suit, giving Simmons a wink as he stepped out the double doors. Washington was headed towards the exit shortly after, dragging Tucker behind him as Tucker strained to be left behind. Their voices mingled together as Wash hauled the younger soldier out the door.

     “Come’on, you know how long I’ve waited for this-”

     “Oh no. I am not staying here for this shit show-”

     “Wash..”

     The doors shut behind them, hitting Simmons bed as they clattered back into place. Simmons could see the silhouette of his friends as they walked away, their voices fading as they got farther away from the hospital wing. The room was quiet once more, the only noises the ideal chattering of other patients, the beeping of machines, and Grif’s steady breathing.

     “Simmons…” Simmons didn’t move keeping his gaze firmly on the wall. His pupils in his human eye were shrunk small. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. When Simmons dared to think about it, this confession, the confession he didn’t dare put into words half the time, it took place somewhere quiet. Somewhere on Earth, maybe on a beach. When they were alone, and the world wasn’t exploding around them. Not here. Never here.

     “Simmons….” Grif started again. His voice had lost the sharp edge they used when bickering. “That was a shitty romantic gesture, you know that?”

     Simmons felt his stomach drop, plummet into free-fall and hit the ground just like they’d crashed onto this hell-hole of a planet. He gripped the bedsheets of his cot, and wished he could feel the coarse fabric with both of his hands, instead of just the human one.

     “Fuck off.” His words lacked any bite. After a moment, he felt something flick the back of his head. Simmons turned over to find Grif with a segment of his bandages in his hand. He’d torn off a part of the edges to make a small projectile, and was working on another. Simmons forgot about the hollow feeling in his chest. “What are you doing?” He hissed. “Those are there for a reason, fatass!”

     “I’m trying to get your attention,” Grif said, putting the fragment of gauze on his lap. He was quiet for a few moments before he pointed to Simmons’ shoulder. “You know you almost died from that? That bullet nicked an artery.”

     Simmons did know that. In fact, he was trying rather hard not to dwell on it. It was one thing to fail to protect Grif at all. It was another to almost die failing at it. “Don’t rub it in.”

     “I’m not.” That caught Simmons by surprise. He propped himself up on his good arm, to get a better look at Grif. The man was staring at his shoulder, his arms once again resting in his lap. His mouth was pulled into a taught line. It looked out of place on his face. “I’m just saying, you could have died from saving my ass. Like we could be burying you, right now, all because you decided to step in front of a bullet. You would be dead, and I would be left here with a corpse and a shitty romantic gesture to remember you by.”

     Simmons felt his mouth go dry. “Grif?”

     Grif began to turn away from him but then stopped himself, gritting his teeth. He then shifted back to face Simmons and took a deep breath. “That’s why I don’t appreciate it. I don’t want a romantic gesture if it means you fucking die.” He took another deep breath and stretched out his hand, the left one, with the patch of pale skin. He then looked Simmons straight in the eye. “I’d rather just have you.”  

     Simmons stared at him for a little. He glanced down at Grif’s outstretched hand, then back at Grif again.

     “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,” he whispered. It seemed like a shout in the quiet of the room. Grif just shrugged, wincing from the gesture given his wound. A small smile appeared on his face.

     “It’s us. I think it going is a miracle enough in itself.”

     Simmons felt the tightness in his chest dissipate. He reached out and grabbed Grif’s hand, ignoring the pain it took to move. The lights above them were still flickering, he could hear training exercises outside, and his arm hurt like a bitch. Simmons didn’t care.

     This was a moment worth remembering.

 

****  
  


 

 

 

 


End file.
